NOM: Desperate in DC

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Saturday, 9/11/2010 12:09 pm

As we’ve been reporting, the National Organization for Marriage has been pumping money into Washington D.C.’s Democratic Party primaries in order to make good on its threat to punish elected officials who supported the District’s marriage equality law. With NOM’s mayoral candidate Leo Alexander barely registering in the polls (one percent among likely voters), and its candidate for the at-large council seat knocked off the ballot for failing to collect sufficient valid signatures, NOM’s last best hope seems to be helping Ward 5 council candidate Delano Hunter make a respectable showing this Tuesday, September 14.

To make that happen, NOM is pouring its resources into attacks on Ward 5 Councilmember Harry ‘Tommy’ Thomas. We recently noted the chutzpah it took for NOM, which has bragged about efforts to get “white suburban Christian Republicans” to fund anti-equality candidates in DC, to send voters a flyer complaining about a fictional flood of “outside” money from San Francisco and New York supposedly attacking Hunter.

NOM’s latest flyer is even worse. It seems calculated for maximum divisiveness, featuring a rich, snooty, white guy looking down his nose at voters with claims that “DC Elites” are disrespecting voters in majority-Black Ward 5 by preventing a referendum on marriage equality. The flyer’s theme fits with comments by Bishop Harry Jackson, who has worked tirelessly to inflame racial divisions over the issue.

Hunter, who lost badly to Thomas in a recent straw poll of Ward 5 Democrats, didn’t help himself during a Friday debate on “The Politics Hour,” a local public radio show. He's the only one of four candidates who does not support marriage equality and had a hard time giving a clear answer about his position. By the end of the show he was pushed into promising that if elected he wouldn’t try to change the law. So what exactly is NOM hoping to get from its six-figure investment in DC’s elections? I guess an Election Day margin between Thomas and Hunter that will allow NOM leaders to come up with some face-saving spin about their failed efforts to start the “war” that Jackson promised marriage equality would bring to D.C.: